TCG is proud to announce that we are now offering professional development courses to individuals in the New York Tri-State area.

Based on feedback from clients, and students who have taken Pat's course at Columbia University, we have decided to offer courses in building your personal effectiveness, enhancing your emotional intelligence, and dealing with change to the general public.

This is a measure of how good a company is to work for, or put another way, a measure of how good management is in a company. If attrition, voluntary or forced, is high something is don't working right in management. In the first place, are you hiring the right people? Next, are you creating the environment for people to be their best? Is your behavior building loyalty and dedication in your teams to the company's mission? Do you have the right level of engagement in everyone in the company? Are you part of the problem? Only an honest look at attrition can begin to answer these questions.

The OK Plateau

Exceptional performers go far beyond the OK Plateau. Being good enough isn't enough, neither for yourself nor for where you focus your endeavors. Being only OK not only makes you vulnerable to becoming obsolete, but is also damaging to your spirit.

Great performances comes from trying harder things. Deliberate practice entails taking on more challenging tasks, accepting that there will be failures, and knowing that we learn from our failures how to improve. It is the continuous pursuit of more challenging tasks that excite our brains, deliverable more exceptional results, and leads to more self-confidence and satisfaction.

Idea Catalysts

Implement a new service delivery model for a large national financial services company - done. Transform the IT delivery organization of a global investment bank - done. Develop a 3 year strategic IT roadmap for an international bank - done. Review and recommend the Equity Business strategy for a global broker - done.

Idea - n. A notion, plan, scheme, or method; Catalyst - n. Something the speeds up a process. Idea Catalyst - n. Someone with experience, curiosity, imagination and enthusiasm who is energized by challenges. The Conall Group - n. A company whose Idea Catalysts have helped create opportunities and solved problems for their clients for over 8 years, and continuing.

Motivation 3.0*

In the 1940's William McKnight at 3M said "Hire good people and leave them alone." He was ahead of his time in understanding motivation for engineers, and more presciently for today's generation of workers. Tom Kelley of IDEO has said "Mediocracy is expensive-and autonomy can be the antidote." And if ever we needed to heed Jerry Kennelly's wake-up call- "no time to be average", you have all you need to embrace a new style of management. Let The Conall Group, the idea catalysts, help you transform your teams for these times.

*See Daniel's Pink's Drive for more great stories on the science of motivation for these times.

Challenge and Master

Does your team have an accurate and complete understanding of your goals, or is their thinking, or are their actions distorted? Are your people resilient or not? You can change this!

We're not even half-way through the first January of the new decade and so much has happen already. We've all learned more about complexity, interconnectedness and 'too big to fail'; and how our capacity and speed of response is struggling to keep up. Life-long learning is no longer optional, it is a necessity. And so too is rest and relaxation!

Quoting from the writings of Kegan and Lahey, from their Immunity to Change work, we are all capable of developing our ability to handle greater mental complexity, in leading and managing, by moving from being a team player, through independent management towards interdependent leadership.

At The Conall Group we work with individuals and teams towards building higher levels of engagement and productivity. We look forward this January with confidence as we enter our ninth year of helping companies and individuals succeed. The journey continues....

Leadership Development and Management Coaching

In tough economic times, leaders stand-up. When challenges mount, obstacles are great, and options are few, great leaders and managers know what to do. The books that will be written about the business cycle we are living through will have villains and heros, as well as stories of the steady and opportunistic companies and individuals who found ways to survive and later prosper. TCG assists companies deal with difficult times. See our Case Studies page for examples of some of our recent Leadership Development and Management Coaching work.

RenGen Awake!

In the midst of the financial crisis in the US and abroad, the New York Times is noting the conditions for the rise of the second renaissance. The end of the civilization as we know it together with the outpouring of creativity facilitated by the Internet will give birth to the new generation – RenGen or Renaissance Generation. Whereas the previous generation X are often characterized as Dilbert-style middle managers, RenGen are innovative, optimistic and open-minded. Rather than responding to the directives of their direct managers, RenGen collaborates to connect and create. See the full text of Patricia Martin predictions here.

Thanks to Anna Naltchadji for this post.

Acts of Folly

In Barbara Tuckman's book, "The March of Folly - From Troy to Vietnam" she develops the idea that many times in history folly prevails. According to her definition, an act of folly is one in which an act

...must have been perceived as counter-productive in it’s own time,

...a feasible course of action must have been known and available, and